"It’s ti to go back ho."
Cael’s voice was quiet, almost tired. The words hung in the air of the hotel room, swallowed by the heavy curtains and the fading evening light.
Now that the selections were complete, it was ti for Team Gray and the other teams to leave Arhal City.
The journey back to Everbright Academy would begin soon.
But Cael suddenly recalled sothing. He had rged two special elents. Frostfla and Golden Flas.
Then he instantly checked his status, eager to see the new special elent.
The interface appeared before his eyes, glowing faintly in the dim light.
---
Frostfla [49% Mastery]
Golden Flas [8% Mastery]
---
No new elent. Frostfla and Golden Flas sat side by side, separate and unchanged.
His Fusion skill had failed for the first ti.
Cael stared at the interface. His brow furrowed. He let out a slow sigh.
’Why did it fail? Didn’t it say there was a high probability of creating a new elent? Then why?’
He stood there in silence, the only sound the distant hum of the city outside the window.
The answer did not co imdiately. But it did not take long for Cael to arrive at one.
"Contradiction?"
The word left his lips like a question. He was not sure if he was asking himself or the empty room.
Recalling Princess Luna’s words, Cael could not help but frown. Her voice echoed in his mory, faint but clear.
"Contradictions are opposites of each other. At the sa ti, they are the closest to each other."
He muttered the words softly,
"Find the contradictions of your own path?"
He ruffled his hair, running his fingers through his silver locks in frustration.
"What the hell does ’Path’ even an?"
Although the word ’path’ was simple, the direction of that path was endless.
It could an a journey. A power. A battle style. A destiny. A choice.
The more Cael thought about it, the more confused he beca.
And Cael had no way of knowing what the direction of that path was.
But Cael had a feeling. A whisper at the back of his mind. An instinct he could not shake. This path had sothing to do with the pathway.
The sa pathway that led Elowyn to beco Sovereign of Red Heart.
He shook his head and decided to leave the matter aside.
There was no point in chasing answers that would not co.
Besides, Cael had already long decided to enter the Death Valley and look for the pathway.
That had not changed.
If anything, the vision he had just experienced only made his resolve even firr.
Cael took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the cool evening air. Then he exhaled slowly, releasing the tension in his shoulders.
He decided to et Junior before leaving the city. There was one more thing he needed to do.
...
anwhile, inside the Golden Scale Academy’s infirmary.
The room was white and sterile. The walls were pale. The beds were lined in neat rows.
The air was thick with the sll of dicine, antiseptic, and sothing faintly sweet, like dried flowers.
Junior suddenly jolted awake from his slumber.
His eyes snapped open. His chest heaved. His breath ca in quick, ragged gasps, as if he had been running from sothing in his sleep.
His sudden actions startled the nearby people.
A few patients turned their heads, their eyes wide with curiosity and concern.
A nurse looked up from her desk, her pen hovering over a clipboard.
Seeing Junior’s condition, one of the nurses imdiately walked to him. Her footsteps were soft against the polished floor.
She reached his bedside and asked,
"Are you okay?"
Junior did not answer. He did not even acknowledge her presence.
His nose twitched. The sll of dicine and antiseptic filled his nostrils.
His mana vision activated automatically, painting the world in fragnts of color and light.
Junior learned he was in the infirmary.
Junior finally cald down. His breathing slowed. His heart steadied. He heard the nurse repeat herself.
"Hello, are you okay?"
Only then did Junior notice the nurse was patiently waiting for his answer.
Then Junior answered with a soft tone,
"Yes, I am okay, but for how long did I pass out for?"
"It has been a few hours."
The nurse answered as she took his arm and started to check his pulse. Her fingers were cool against his skin.
Junior waited until the nurse finished her checkup and left. Her footsteps faded down the hallway.
His mind was a ss.
When he had lost consciousness, he had seen ti stop all around him. People frozen like statues.
And the sky... the red sky he had seen before losing consciousness.
It sent shivers down his spine just thinking about it.
’That is definitely a ti elent user.’
But recalling how the heavenly book had acted strangely during that ti, Junior quickly tried to call the heavenly book.
He reached out with his mind, searching for the familiar presence.
Fortunately, the heavenly book was still in him. He could feel it there, nestled deep in his consciousness.
But it was not responding to his calls.
For a mont, Junior thought that person had co to take away his heavenly book.
But why would the heavenly book react like that toward that person? The heavenly book was so excited, like a child seeing her parent after a long ti.
Thinking this, Junior’s expression turned solemn. His blind eyes stared at the ceiling.
His lips pressed into a thin line.
’That... don’t tell ...’
"A celestial?"
The word hung in his mind, heavy and impossible. He quickly shook his head.
’That ans it is true. The world I lived in the past is the sa world I am in now.’
Although he had already known this for so ti, he was still surprised nonetheless.
’This won’t do, I need to speed things up. I shouldn’t wait any longer.’
He clenched his fists beneath the thin infirmary blanket.
’I need his help.’
...
anwhile, inside the academy, Cael walked alone through the quiet pathways.
A hood covered his silver hair. A mask covered his face. The reason for hiding was simple.
Currently, the Wind Clone was acting as Cael, having dinner with Edwin, Aria, and Brania. The team believed their leader was sitting right beside them.
And Cael was in no rush to et Junior.
After all, Junior was still under surveillance.
The academy had not forgotten the disappearance of the Frostfla user or the mana disruption in Junior’s dorm room.
The investigation was still ongoing, and any unusual activity could draw unwanted attention.
Unknowingly, it was already night.
Cael looked up at the black sky, which was illuminated by a myriad of stars and the pale glow of the moon.
The constellations stretched across the heavens like scattered diamonds on velvet. The moonlight washed over him, soft and cool.
Due to having the Moonlight elent, whenever Cael stood under the moon, he felt a soft, gentle sensation.
Cael did not know why, but ever since he woke from the resonance, he had felt strange.
Like sothing within him had changed. A shift so subtle he could not na it. A presence so faint he could not locate it.
He did not know what it was. He did not know why he was feeling this way.
Shaking his head, he put those thoughts aside. There would be ti to examine them later.
For now, he began searching for Junior. It only took so ti before he found him.
Then Cael reached Junior. The blind boy turned back and looked at him.
But before Cael could say anything, Junior imdiately said,
"I want you to co with to the... rmaid’s Flower Garden."
...
Far from the Golden Scale Academy, hidden beneath the earth’s surface, a realm existed where no light had ever reached.
Deep beneath the earth, where the ocean’s weight pressed down through layers of huge rock.
A pocket of wind had been trapped in the huge rock for eons. It had nowhere to go. No crack to escape through.
So, it simply existed.
Inside that realm, at its very core, a man was pinned to a stone slab.
Multiple nails pierced his body. His wrists. His shoulders. His ankles. His chest.
Each nail was rusted, ancient, as if they had been there since the beginning of ti.
The stone slab was not ordinary. It was engraved with countless ancient runes, symbols that glowed faintly, pulsing like a dying heartbeat.
The man’s hair was matted, tangled, falling across his face. His clothes were torn, faded, dyed red from centuries of bleeding.
-Drip.
-Drip.
-Drip.
Blood fell from his body, endlessly.
No one knew how long he had been nailed here. No one knew how he was still alive. No one knew how he seed to have an infinite supply of blood.
But if Cael were here and saw the person.
He recognized the face imdiately. It was the knight. The sa knight who had spoken with Princess Luna in the throne room.
Suddenly, the man who had kept his eyes closed for millions of years slowly opened them as he muttered,
His voice was dry, cracked, barely a whisper.
"So, it’s ti."
___
[End of Arc: Selection Test for Participants]
[Next Arc: The Garden of Silent Screams]
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